Mitchell was born Percy Williams in Malone, New York, in 1953, after his Algonquin and Mohawk parents were turned away from a hospital in Cornwall, Ontario.
[1] Mitchell and the Desert River Band performed live for Ottawa's CJOH-TV's program, New Faces, in 1970, and began touring heavily after that.
Mitchell spent four years at the all-First Nations Manitou Community College, in La Macaza, Quebec, where he studied traditional botany, photography, and film making.
[4] In 1980, with Janine Poirier Macdonald, Mitchell organized a festival featuring his contemporaries in the First Nations and Inuit music industry.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Northern Service recorded the performances, and released an LP, Sweet Grass Music, in 1982.